We had a great holiday in Scotland visiting Ruth’s mum. It was proper frosty!
Hope you might enjoy some of the pictures I took while we were there.
It was great to be reminded what a cold winter is like - as here in south west Ireland it’s unbelievably mild!
I would like some suggestions on how I can help make this kind of thing (and all the other horrible things humans do behind lies and deceit) STOP.
(or Command + F for Mac users).
Many years of daily computer use often makes one forget that other’s don’t necessarily make the most of the electronic paradigm. Recently I’ve sat looking over the shoulders of friends and family as they slowly scroll through a long Word document or web page trying to find the bit of text they want to show me or edit. This makes sense in a paper world - you scan through the pages, hoping your eye lands on the words you’re after. It seems it’s a well ingrained habit!
If you’re looking for a word of phrase on your computer you don’t need to do this!. Get into the habit of holding down Ctrl and pressing F (for ‘Find’). This works in most programs.
Go on - make a new habit before New Year.
Interesting website from FAESTA
The UN recently warned about the risk of identity theft for people who enter similar usernames and passwords across many websites.
Many people I know have no idea how to create, store and reuse passwords. If you use Windows I highly recommend paying for Roboform which remembers your passwords, fills forms when you arrive at a site and also generates strong passwords for you. It adds a toolbar to your web browser (IE or Firefox). It is available as a portable version for Portable Firefox so now there’s no excuse to be without your essential passwords wherever you go. It also has a useful post-it notes type feature and a new excellent customisable search box.
So, with this and the spell-checking in Firefox 2, it’s bye bye to Google toolbar.
Roboform encrypts all of your data behind a master password. Sure, it gives a single point of attack for hackers, but I reckon it’s still pretty secure with a strong password. I’ve been running Roboform for 3 years now and their support and updates have been excellent. If you’re struggling to remember lots of passwords I highly recommend it.
(Mac Users can try 1Passwd, Linux users probably have their own favorite - I like Revelation for Gnome.
The excellent PHP Markdown (especially the Extra version) has just had a new release with some enhancements and many bug-fixes. I use this exclusively in Moodle and Wordpress and try to encourage all clients and friends to use it too. So much better than ‘rich text’ editors (IMO). Writing Markdown can become second nature very quickly - and in combination with SmartyPants you can create accurate documents very quickly.
(Update: read Michel’s blog post on the updates)
(And with the great spell-checking in Firefox 2, writing into the browser is becoming quite enjoyable.)
